


always gold to me

by meggie272



Category: Free!
Genre: Alcohol, Asexual Character, Asexual Rei, Domesticity, Dubiously Platonic RinRei, M/M, MakoHaru mention, Post-Canon, Queerplatonic Relationships, Roommates, SouRin mention, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 05:55:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2377268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meggie272/pseuds/meggie272
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Perhaps it was more of an unfolding than a cascade. A blooming. A ripening. Not a disaster, but a new thing, beautiful and real. Or maybe they are just two guys who decided to live together, and like each other’s company more than they thought they could. They have both, at various points, felt like the fifth wheel in that tight, warm little circle of sleepy summer love that is Iwatobi, so maybe it’s fitting, the way it's turned out."  </p><p>Post S2, Rin and Rei are living in Tokyo together. They get drunk; Rin gets sloppy; it all ends up okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	always gold to me

Rin is invited to a party, and is told ‘You can bring your boyfriend if you want’. After yet another dead-eyed and dead-souled explanation that the weird guy with the glasses is not, in actual fact, his boyfriend, he’s told he can bring him along anyway then, and that it’s going to be fun.

Rin believes the guy, at the time. Parties can be pretty great. If he’s in the mood.

Which he isn’t, come Friday night. He’s had a _brutal_ training session and then a shift at the coffee shop afterwards that has left him stinking of coffee beans, damp and red-cheeked with sweat, exhausted and angry at every single customer in the entire world. Everything is too much. Too many people exist. They’re all so annoying. Why is everyone so annoying.

He gets back to the apartment and slams emphatically through the door in a luxurious sweep of drama. It feels good to stop pretending he is a reasonable and capable member of society in one glorious arcing tantrum of a room enter. Rei is there to witness this grand moment of catharsis, thankfully, and it makes him look up owlishly from the sofa, where he is sitting ramrod-straight with a textbook, hair damp and curling slightly at the ends from a shower.

“I am _done,”_ Rin declares.

“Are you excited for the party tonight, Rin?” Rei asks mildly, adjusting his glasses with a neat little movement.

Rin stares at him.

“I am pretty sure I have coffee in my hair,” he explains. His voice is as hollow as the grave where all his energy has gone to die.

Rei squints, and Rin can see him running the Social Interaction equations in his head. “You…don’t want to go?” he tries.

“Not really, no.” Rin undoes his apron and tosses it on the ground. Rei looks at it with an expression of extreme distaste, but apparently decides to lets it pass this time. He’ll probably iron it and fold it and leave it on Rin’s bed later when he thinks he can get away with it. It  has taken Rin a while to get used to being the messy one after living with Nitori and his bombshell of a desk for so long.

“Are you feeling unwell?” Rei inquires.

“No, I’m just exhausted. Can’t be bothered. I’m a superstar athlete after all, I’ve gotta conserve my strength when necessary. You weren’t super keen on it or anything, were you?” he asks as he slumps down on the couch next to Rei. “I mean, you could go without me. You’ve met Susumu before, haven’t you?”

Rei makes an unhappy face at the thought. It’s not that he’s _shy_ as such, as anyone who has suffered the misfortune of being in his presence when he’s got an opinion he feels he needs to state, but crowds of strangers have never been his thing. It doesn’t fit in with any of his settings, which are as follows: alienating everyone present by spouting a condescending stream of science; shouting at Nagisa; stilted politeness; ignoring everything he doesn’t care about; laughing like a mad scientist at his own jokes; crying about the magic of friendship. “Only once,” Rei says quickly, “and I don’t think he liked me very much.”

“Oh, he liked you, don’t be paranoid,” Rin mumbles, tipping his head back and staring at the ceiling. He can smell the sakura from that shampoo Rei uses. God, it’s nice to be sitting down. His sore muscles start to relax. He’s never getting up, ever again. “He said you could come, didn’t he? Go on. Don’t let me ruin your night.”

“I don’t know any of his friends,” Rei says, frowning slightly. “I’d be awkward and alone! Talking to the potted plants! And that’s not beautiful.”

Rin laughs and kicks his shin. Rei does not dignify it with a retaliating attack, which is probably good, since the bruises on Rin’s leg from the last time they got into a kicking competition have only just faded. He just sniffs and starts reading his textbook pointedly.

Rin smiles fondly at the constipated expression of irritation on his housemate’s face, and then realises that maybe he doesn’t want to be _completely_ alone tonight.

 “Well, stay here with me then,” he says lightly, bumping his shoulder into Rei’s.

Rei blushes and stutters and draws himself together with a superhuman effort. “I wasn’t going anywhere anyway,” he says haughtily.

“Good. Codependent. That’s just how I like em,” and then Rei shrieks, and Rin grins, because this couch is so very comfortable and Rei is so very idiotic and somewhere in it all this has come to feel like home. Which is nice. Home as a concept has always been a bit of a tricky thing in Rin’s life. He’d spent so many years withdrawing, creating some kind of bullshit wintry shell around himself, so that nowhere was really home, and no one was really family.

And yeah, Rin has his bad days, and sometimes it’s hard to focus and remember what’s real and what’s important. But if he closes his eyes he still remembers that relay at the end of second year, the late summer air on his skin and the taste of chlorine in his mouth. That light-headed, butterfly-wing feeling. The first pure and unabridged moment of happiness since the age of twelve.  It’s a good memory. He holds it close.

And it had been thanks to Rei, watching from the stands. Rei and his meddling, and his refusal to back down and watch everyone else stew in their own unresolved sadness. The way he got shit done and put the pieces together.

So he’ll always owe this guy. A lot.

It had been less weird than he’d thought, moving in together. He had called Rei the night he knew that his class would be graduating, feeling vague and sad and wistful, called to congratulate him on finishing school, and to ask him what he’d be doing next. Rei had told him he was moving to Tokyo to study chemical science, and that he wasn’t sure where he was going to live yet. Rin had made an agreeable sound in response. And then there had been a long, awkward pause. Very long, very awkward. Filled with the sound of drunken Nagisa revelling in the background, and some questionable Western music. And then Rei had started crying.

Rin understood, he really did, it’s a scary thing to be tossed out into the world. Rin had embraced the fear, and sunk his shark teeth into it, but anxiety-ridden Rei, who is gentle and sensitive as a flower, well, it was difficult for him. He had muttered a few words of consolation and then told him to get back to his party – Rei had swallowed audibly, hiccupped, and bravely assented. Rin had then sent a very angry text to Nagisa saying, basically, take care of him tonight or I’ll murder you long-distance. Nagisa’s response was legible enough that Rin felt vaguely okay about rolling over and going to sleep. The next night Rin called Rei again to make sure he was okay, because of the strange and binding sense of obligation he has towards Rei and his enormous, fragile heart. Rin isn’t really a _chatter,_ but it had been so long since he had talked properly to any of the old Iwatobi crew that he found himself not wanting to hang up. They had ended up talking into the early hours of the morning, for some reason, about swimming, and about Rin and Haruka’s plans to make it to the international stage, and about Makoto and Haruka, who were then and are still spiralling around each other in bright golden circles of domesticity and disgusting co-dependency, and about what the future might be like, where they would all be in ten years, and about Nagisa’s plans to open up his own little cake shop one day, and how expensive it is to live in the city, and around one-thirty, Rei had stammered out: “Rin-senpai, you live alone, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Rin had mumbled through that vague euphoric exhaustion you get when you know you have to get up and function in about six hours and yet you are still awake.

“D…do you ever have trouble paying the rent?”                                          

“It gets a bit tight sometimes,” Rin had admitted, thinking about how sparse his diet had been lately.

“Could. Do you think. WoulditbeokayifIlivedwithyouforawhile?”

Rin had stared at the wall, and had the sudden sensation of a slow cascade. Into insanity, or awkwardness that you couldn’t walk away from, or just a really, really bad idea.

And that’s how it happened.

They argue, a lot, but to be honest, Rin has not yet lived with someone he doesn’t argue with a lot. They have had a few screaming matches, if you want to be pedantic about it, but that’s just because they are almost too similar for it to work. Almost, not quite. They are both so raw about their feelings, so quick to recoil from a touch, in their separate ways – and yet both of them are pushy fuckers, elbowing their way into emotional conflicts they know will only cause them pain. It’s a wonder it hasn’t fallen apart, but with their schedules they don’t actually have _time_ to fall apart. With the rent increase two months ago they don’t have the finances for it either.

Besides, it is so nice to come home to someone after a year of living on your own, even if that someone gets on your nerves about ten times a second. Rin’s a needy bastard. He’ll admit it. He’s got no time to pretend he hates other people any more. Sousuke going far away again after Rin had only just gotten him back, that’s hard, and Haruka and Makoto can’t see him much more than two or three times a month, and his team mates are great and all, but if he said he hadn’t had a single moment of loneliness since leaving Iwatobi, he’d be lying just a little.

On top of that, Rei cooks really, _really_ well. If you like vegetables. And Rin probably does need more of those. A man cannot live on steak alone. Sadly.

Perhaps it was more of an unfolding than a cascade. A blooming. A ripening. Not a disaster, but a new thing, beautiful and real. Or maybe they are just two guys who decided to live together, and like each other’s company more than they thought they could. They have both, at various points, felt like the fifth wheel in that tight, warm little circle of sleepy summer love that is Iwatobi, so maybe it’s fitting, the way it's turned out.

An hour passes, and Rei keeps reading, his glasses slipping down his nose. Rin watches some stupid romance movie on TV, and about quarter of the way through shuffles around so his legs are resting in Rei’s lap. Rei grumbles but doesn’t actually move Rin’s legs away, so he figures he’s good. Rin blunders into personal space like a champ, always has, it’s how he rolls. He wriggles his bare feet happily. The sunset spears through the window in shafts of pink and gold. They fall into a kind of comfortable equilibrium, until Rei grunts and stretches and says he is going to make some green tea.

“Could you make me some coffee,” Rin says plaintively as Rei disappears into the kitchen,. Rei goes into a diatribe about the various detrimental effects of excessive caffeine consumption and how Rin shouldn’t have any this late because he won’t be able to sleep and regular sleep patterns are _very_ important, Rin, but comes back out a few minutes later carefully holding a mug that smells like _heaven._ What an angel. In this moment, everything that is exceedingly annoying about his personality is forgotten. Rin is going to keep him forever.

“I thought you had had enough of coffee,” Rei says, sipping delicately at his tea.

“I have had enough of work coffee. This is home coffee, and is entirely different,” Rin says over the rim of his mug. “Cheaper, and shittier, but in a good way.”

“Home,” Rei says contemplatively, staring into his cup.

Rin flushes, remembering the similar thoughts that had crossed his mind earlier. He’s allowed to think thoughts like that. Rei should not say it, with his eyes soft and focused behind glass. “We don’t need any sentimental crap. Keep it to yourself.”

“I would say that accusations of over-sentimentality coming from _you_ are markedly hypocritical!” Rei snaps, like the angriest little butterfly there ever was.

Rin splutters, then concedes.

After the coffee and a shower he feels a lot more human. He wanders back out, rubbing his hair with a towel, and his gaze alights on the bottle of awful cheap vodka he’d bought intending to take to the party, sitting innocently on the table.

Maybe this night doesn’t have to be a _total_ waste.

“Hey, Rei?” he calls.

“Yes, Rin?” Rei says from his book.

“Wanna get drunk?”

Rei makes some sort of affronted noise from his very expansive collection of affronted noises. “I thought you didn’t want to get drunk!”

“No, I didn’t want to go the party,” Rin says, grabbing the bottle and wandering into the living room where Rei is looking at him with an expression of severe disapproval. “Come on, Ryugazaki, you would have been drunk any way if we’d gone.”

“No I most certainly would _not_ have,” Rei says, closing his book with a very final sounding _snap._ “I am a very responsible drinker. I have calculated the exact amount of standard drinks per hour, depending of course on the alcohol content of the liquor in question, taking into account my body weight and metabolic rate, to keep me at a socially acceptable and charming level of tipsiness without losing control of my faculties or doing anything that would not be considered beautiful.”

Rin blinks. Sometimes Rei leaves him behind. “Okay,” he says. “Then socially acceptable and charming it is.”

 

**3 HOURS LATER**

 

“And I just miss them so much, I miss Haruka-senpai and Makoto-senpai and Nagisa, I miss Nagisa so _much,_ and I wish we could be young and free and beautiful again,” Rei says into Rin’s collarbone, his breath hot and sticky against his skin.

Rin pats Rei vaguely on the back. He’s not sure how it happened, everything’s a little bit hazy, but he’s squashed up against one end of the couch, so slouched he’s almost falling off, with Rei draped half on his chest and half sprawled horizontally over the rest of the couch. His hair is tickling Rin’s chin. Everything is pleasantly fuzzy, warm and hilarious, and the lights of the city through the window are refracting and shining like neon stars. They’re not drunk drunk, but they are both heavily tipsy, overtired and overemotional, and for individuals with such delicate mental constitutions as Ryugazaki Rei and Matsuoka Rin, that is a combination with some weight behind it. 

He pats Rei again, and then again. “No, Ryugazaki, no, you are still young and free and beautiful, don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Rei lifts his head up so their faces are about two inches apart, and tries to props himself up with a bony elbow speared painfully into Rin’s stomach. “You really think so?” he asks, looking up at him like he’s going to cry. His eyes are purple-wet and glittering like stones.   

“I really do. A captain _never_ lies.”

Rei makes some sort of _oh my god I am so overwhelmed with emotion right now_ noise and slumps back down again, his face squishing against Rin’s chest. “You’re not a captain any more,” he says, muffled.

“I am still a captain…”

There is a very loaded pause. The walls lean in to listen.

“…at _heart.”_

Rei chokes. “That’s so beautiful, Rin,” he says in a tiny voice.

“Thank you, Rei-chan,” he says, and the Rei-chan in question stiffens.

“What? What, what, what did I say,” Rin stumbles. Shit, shit, shit, he’s supposed to be making Rei feel _happier,_ happy, happy, happy is the goal and Rin is good at achieving goals, except when they involve other people apparently.

“Nagisa used to call me Rei-chan,” Rei wails messily.

“He…he still does,” Rin says vaguely. He feels very sleepy. “I heard him. The other day. On the phone. _‘Reiiiii-chan~!’”_ He makes a resolution to never imitate Nagisa ever again. Ever. But it’s done now and he cannot go back. It’s a grim and wintry thought.

“But it’s not the same. Nothing’s the same,” Rin says, morose and alcoholic-sounding enough to put Bukowski to shame.

“Aah, don’t cry.” Rin pets his hair gently.

“I’m not crying. You’re the one who cries all the time.”

Rin keeps stroking Rei’s hair, offended in a cloudy sort of way. “Shut up,” he says.

“No. I refuse.”

“Okay.”

But he does shut up. For a while Rin runs his fingers through Rei’s hair, which is soft and silky and lovely to touch, and watches the television, which is on mute after Rin decided Rei was no longer aloud to provide ‘expert’ commentary on the late night foreign singing competitions. It flickers, soft and soundless, casting a blue and white glow over the dark room. Rei is breathing softly, and Rin thinks he might be asleep.

“You’re a good friend, Ryugazaki,” he says, quietly.

Rei murmurs something inaudible against his chest and rolls over so he’s on his back, looking up at Rin’s face. So he was awake. Rin lost that gamble. Or maybe he won it. He’s not sure. He doesn’t mind.

“You’re a good friend too, Rin,” he says earnestly, a little slurred. “Even though I hated you at first because everyone was obsessed with you and you seemed very unfriendly.”

Rin sighs. “I was. Sorry about that.”

“It’s all right. You were sad. And I was jealous. You taught me to swim free, Rin, I couldn’t hate you after that.”

“Pffffffffff,” Rin says, and Rei collapses into laughter for no real reason, his eyes squinting shut. His teeth are bright flashes of white and there is spit at the corner of his mouth. “Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up,” Rin says, hitting him gently in the face until he stops. “I was _saying._ You don’t need to be jealous, you’ve always stood on your own. I mean, you’re the real adult in this household. I probably would have died of that flu if you hadn’t looked up what to do and made me all that soup.”

Rei is already kind of pink in the cheeks from alcohol, with the imprint of Rin’s shirt red and angry across his face, but the flush darkens. His eyes are still teary from laughing. It’s kind of endearing.

Because Rin is feeling stupid, he taps the tip of Rei’s small, elegant nose. “Soup life-saver man,” he says in English, very seriously.

“I will make you soup any time you want, Rin,” Rei says, solemn and hushed. “Especially when you are ill.”

“Thank you,” Rin whispers. “I look forward to it.”

The eye contact between them is ridiculously intense.

Rei’s hair is fanned out around him, ink-black. The silence grows, and Rin’s heart is arrhythmic. The city is a quiet monster growling, cars and trains and buses and lights swimming together in a sharp, faraway song.

“Hey, Rei,” he says, slowly.

 “Yes?” Rei’s eyes are lidded.

“Do you want to…”

“Do I want to…” Rei echoes sleepily.

“Kiss me?” he says in English.

Rei laughs. “Kisumi,” he says back, and then some gears turn. He looks up at Rin, mildly bemused, those beautiful eyebrows furrowed. “Not really,” he says gently.

Rin sinks, drunkenly, into a black pit of regret and embarrassment. “Oh god,” he says, rubbing his eyes. Suddenly he is about as tired as Rei looks. “Sorry, Rei.”

“It’s okay,” Rei murmurs lightly, pushing a strand of Rin’s hair back behind his ear. His hands are soft and warm.

“No, no, it was...that wasn’t appropriate. I know you don’t, really. Do that kind of thing. I shouldn’t have asked.” What had he been thinking?

The answer to that question is: absolutely nothing. He had been feeling around in the dark, looking for collisions, as fucking always. It was okay when it was Sousuke, who would meet him halfway and crash into him in the dark of night, but Rei? Rei, who he  _knows_ doesn't - ah, god, he's so stupid. 

“Thank you for asking, anyway,” Rei says. “But…but why did you ask?” He is childlike in his confusion, his face smooth and young. “Are you in love with me, Rin?”

Rin swallows. The question hits him hard, but muffled – like the whump of an explosion before the sound catches up. Stupidly, he stumbles out: “Who asks someone something like that so casually?”

“Who asks for a kiss so casually?”

“Well…” How does he say this? “I am a trainwreck and I show my affection in the stupidest and most physical way possible. But no, I’m not in love with you.”

Rei nods, slowly. He has a far off, underwater look in his eyes.

“I love you, maybe,”Rin adds, after a few moments. Rei smiles at him like a flower opening, his eyes full of the sun.  

“And I’m sorry for being a creep,” Rin continues, when he thinks he has enough control of this full-body embarrassment to speak again. “I should have respected your boundaries.”

“Stop worrying, Rin-chan,” Rei mumbles. “Once you start you never stop.”  He reaches up and touches the arch of Rin’s cheekbone with two surprisingly careful fingertips. “Thank you for saying you love me.”

“Ah, don’t say it back to me like that,” Rin grumbles gently, tilting his chin to lean into Rei’s hand. “I didn’t propose or anything.”

“I care a lot,” Rei says, simply.

Rin sighs, and smiles, and is sad and happy all at once. They are here, and they are growing up, shucking their old selves away like snakes, and never forgetting, and how strange it all is.

“I know,” he replies, eventually.

Rei cares until it hurts. In that way, as well, they’re more similar than Rin can say.

“Good.” Rei pulls away then, and yawns, and curls up in the corner of the sofa like a cat. “I think I’m going to go to sleep now. All this love is exhausting.”

“Oh god, shut up,” Rin groans, and drags himself up on unsteady legs to pour them both a glass of water.

They fall asleep on the couch together as the city breathes through its neon night. By the time Rin wakes up, Rei’s gone. Rin squints through his headache and the sharp, bright morning light at the thermos on the coffee table. There’s a note next to it, written in Rei’s careful hand.

_Going to the library to get some research done. I didn’t want to wake you. Make sure you eat a proper breakfast! I’ll be home around lunch._

_Love, Rei_

Rin stretches, and inhales the sweet, sharp steam of the coffee.

“You’re beautiful,” he tells the small potted bonsai tree that he and Rei bought together. Rei is mainly the one who keeps it alive. “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

He goes about his day, making breakfast, actually watering the bonsai for once, calling a team mate and talking to him about the recent adjustments to the training regimen, watching a stupid movie – and he does not even mind that much when he has to pull himself together through the mild cloud of hangover and leave the apartment to go grocery shopping. When he’s done, he’ll come home to Rei, and he holds the thought close, like a mug of green tea, warm in the curl of his hands.

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this way back at the start of S2, when we got that great little collection of RinRei moments and I was like hang on I really like this ship and I only got around to finishing it and posting it now. I basically have two settings for RinRei which is either antagonistic fuckbuddies or losers with big platonic crushes on each other. They're both so overemotional and ridiculous and you know if they ever became really close friends they would just constantly be sobbing about it. 
> 
> Title is from 'Always Gold' by Radical Face.


End file.
